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Hypercompetition: Why it’s not Profitable?

many blue targets and three arrows hitting the center of the first one

Hypercompetition coined by Richard D’Aveni considers competitive analysis under conditions in which competitive advantages are quickly negated. In addition, guiding policies are repeatedly flouted by iconoclastic rivals competing in border-less boundaries, and customer loyalty is constantly fickle. Can we have hypercompetition between two industries? Yes, because hypercompetition depends upon the mind-set and actions of hypercompetitive partners not on number of competitors.

Temporary advantage is with one who is slightly ahead of competitors, it is the one who breaks the silence first similar to prisoner’s dilemma. It always needs action and that creates issue on profit level for an organization, mostly hypercompetitive partners rely on margins and at times cannot withstand with the demand of innovation and R&D. Oligopolistic cooperation does not produce excess profits because of easy barriers to entry (Porter’s 5). Firms mostly compete with each other in four arenas and they are cost, quality, timing and know-how, strongholds, and deep pockets. In cost and quality arena, the trade-off between price and quality is eliminated, forcing the industry’s product offerings toward a point of ultimate value for consumers, combing low prices with high quality. This can only give minimum of marginal profit scavenging options for hyper competition. So, to overcome these most competitors either redefine quality and increase prices of products/services or force competitors towards timing and know-how arena.

The one who breaks the silence requires a uniquely different set of skills than that of followers, and that confers several advantages. The competitive moves can be easing through the know-how creating/altering resource base with speed, agility and timings. It also escalates when one competitor goes for creating a new resource base or transform strategy to imitate/replicate the one with competitor (let’s say successful competitor). This whole notion is called leapfrog strategy, and it is suggested that it is expensive, and competitors can imitate quickly, and competitions try to create strongholds. Under hypercomeptition, entry barriers can easily be circumnavigated. When Stronghold erodes through the entry of increasing rivals, the rivalry shifts to who can outlast the others based on their deep pockets. Big fishes as I’ve mentioned in my previous article in superior financial conditions can neutralize hypercompetition through tatics such as strategic alliances, acquisitions, franchising, niching, and swarming (moving is large numbers).

Hypercompetition can be in multiple arenas, or it could have stuck in a particular arena for a long period. Here comes proper project management, suppose the delay between moves are longer, and this delay is purposefully done so that enough resource can be produced to give a slack in the project for a recoup. Perfect competition gives profits significantly but hypercompetition doesn’t give profits, and if some then it’d be temporarily until the firm’s advantages are neutralized or eroded by other competitors.

Hypercompetion takes following points as assumptions:

Firms mostly destroy their own competitive advantages and create new-new products. They deliberately cannibalize their own leading product before it goes through full product life cycle. Moving to new products needs capital for innovation, production costs etc decreasing margins.

The one who are determined will likely to break the barrier but exiting barriers only provide a false sense of security, lulling incumbents into complacency.

Consistency and logical thinking are the easiest thing to understand in competition. So, it is always advisable to be unpredictable.

Long-term planning will only help to sustain and exploit existing advantage. Hypercompetitive is all about eroding existing advantage of competitors.

From SWOT, one gets weakness of competitors. Studies suggest that targeting ones’ weakness consistently will make them to work on that and can improve turning into stronger instead.